The Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) campaign identified around 3.8 million women born in the 1950s who suddenly found they would have to work many more years when the State Pension age was increased to 65 between 2016 and 2018 and then to 66, for both men and women across the UK in October, 2020.
In July 2021, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) ruled that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) failed to communicate the changes with enough urgency, finding it guilty of maladministration, and is currently investigating the harm caused.
Changes to the State Pension age, which were legislated for in 1995, were not communicated through targeted letters to the affected women until 2008, leading the PHSO to find that "The opportunity that additional notice would have given them to adjust their retirement plans was lost”. In a new update, the PHSO has said it is still working on stage two of its investigation, but shared what it plans to do next.
Stage one of the independent investigation found that between 1995 and 2004, DWP’s communication of changes to State Pension age reflected the standards the PHSO would expect it to meet. However, in 2005, it found that the DWP failed to make a reasonable decision about targeting information to the women affected by these changes - that was maladministration.
In 2006, DWP proposed writing to women individually to tell them about changes to State Pension age but it failed to act promptly, the PHSO said this was also maladministration.
Next steps in the investigation
The PHSO said: “We have shared the provisional views for the second stage of the investigation with complainants, their MPs, DWP and ICE [Independent Case Examiner]. They now have an opportunity to provide comments.”
The second stage is considering:
- DWP’s communication about the number of qualifying years of National Insurance contributions that are required for a full State Pension
- DWP’s and ICE’s complaint handling
- Whether any failings led to injustice, including the maladministration it identified at stage one of the investigation
PHOS also explained how it is adjusting its approach to the remainder of this investigation so that it can complete it as efficiently as possible.
PHOS said: “We are going to begin considering what action we think DWP should take to remedy the apparent injustice.
“We will share our provisional views about remedy once we have considered any further evidence we receive about our provisional views for stage two.
“We will then go on to publish our findings about the issues we are considering at stage two and remedy at the same time. This adjustment will minimise complainants’ wait for our findings about remedy once we have considered any further evidence we receive.”
Recommendations PHOS cannot make
The update on the PHOS website also indicated DWP recommendations it can’t make.
It said: “Many complainants have told us they are seeking reinstatement of their State Pension, the State Pension age to revert to 60, and/or compensation for the amount of State Pension they would have received had their State Pension age not changed.
“A 2019 High Court decision underlined that we are not able to recommend DWP reimburse ‘lost’ pensions. Nor can we recommend that anyone receive their State Pension any earlier than the law allows. To do so would amount to us recommending DWP reverse or try to reverse primary legislation.”
You can read more about the findings from stage one of the PHOS investigation here.
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